The Second Death
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: My name is Sage. I am a child of Thanatos and 90% of the time I'm screaming. [Rewrite of Death's Deception. Probably not NicoxOC. HIATUS? IDK]


**Chapter One: The Ghost King Interrupts My Nap**

To all the kids out there wanting to be me: no.

Don't pretend I can't see right through you because you're a little liar, just trying to be cool. It isn't "kinda cool" to be the doomed offspring of an asocial death god and don't even dare say you wouldn't mind, because I can assure you that you freaking would. Sure, you'd love it to have bright gold eyes and an aura that practically _smells_ like death and fear, you'd love to have _encouragement_ from your daddy to wear your emo shirts and black ripped jeans, you'd love for people to just _leave you alone_ ; but what then, princess? Getting kicked outta kindergarten for beating up a kid, after he called you devilspawn? Growing up knowing he's right? Never knowing who you are, 'cuz you can't even be called alive?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you'd love it.

Because lemme tell you this, princess — you think you're a special snowflake, but you're _not._ I've met dozens of kids like you, thinking you're so cool and dark and cute all on your own, with your "different" music and your dark clothes and chains and "emo" attitude, and that you'd love to live this. That you go so far as to write yourself into this life, into what you "want" to be.

You still think you're up for the challenge, don't you?

Well.

Listen to this, listen to what I've got to say, and if you think you like it, great. Just take my word for it — no matter how "antisocial" or "dark" or "emo" or "goth" you think you are, you ain't ready. Not to live like this. 'Cuz living like this?

It's not even.

My daddy can't give life to anyone, and even though my heart was beating for fourteen years, you can't even dare call me alive.

* * *

Call me Sage. Sage Thanem.

Zeus knows if that's my real last name; even I don't know. When I was born, my mom went to court and changed her last name just so her family would think she'd gotten married — they were always real strict about that sort of stuff, and who knows what would've happened to my mom if they'd found out that my dad was actually the immortal invisible angel of death and that technically he couldn't marry anybody.

That aside, I can't remember what Mom's maiden name was (probably something Mexican, that's all I can figure) and Dad never told, because he was never around. Probably 'cuz of the aforementioned death god thing, but whatever.

I was thirteen years old when the son of Hades came, living on my own somewhere in the armpits of Chicago. How I'd come to be there I have literally no idea — same as all my other hideouts in my four-year-career as a homeless demigod, which included mainly a lot of running and a lot of coincidence.

This one was a bit nicer than the rest, meaning it'd lasted the longest and that I had no intentions of moving anytime soon. For three weeks I'd been camping out in this tiny one-bedroom apartment with two unemployed musicians to my right, a family of six to my left and a dozen monsters strolling right outside, barely smelling a thing. This was probably because the previous inhabitant of my apartment had literally died in here and since he'd been a recluse anyway, no one noticed his departure until he started to smell. The smell only lingered because of my presence, and any nasties couldn't sniff out the demigod behind it.

Fortunately for me though, I'm not bothered by it because neither of my nostrils work. Seriously, it's kinda nice.

At about seven o'clock at night I came back from probably the worst restaurant experience of my life (involving a baby hydra and some perfume) and collapsed on the couch, out cold. I was still hungry, but then again, I'm always hungry. There's a reason why I got these fat rolls.

Because I'm a relatively light sleeper, I woke up at about three o'clock when the moon poked its nasty white head through my window, which I'd forgotten to close earlier. Stupidly I opened my eyes to see what had awoken me and subsequently flinched in blinding pain, leaving dancing green and purple spots in my vision. Going back to the "emo goth" thing — yeah, sure, act like vampires all you want, but the aversion to light thing actually sucks ice.

So, with my eyes squeezed shut against the blinding pain and my hands waving like a maniac in front of me, trying to find my window, I yanked my curtains over them, stumbled back to my couch and whumped down. _Whump._

You know that awful feeling when you're just about to fall asleep, you're in the perfect position, the stars are aligned, and you have to pee?

Yeah. It was that.

Except, not really. Because by "have to pee" I mean "the urge to throw up because it feels like your personal space is being literally sucked into a black hole". And by that, I mean some gnawing, nasty feeling in…not even my stomach, it was more like — my liver? I dunno, who cares. Anyway, the point's made, I felt really comfortable and suddenly really rotten at the same time.

Now, the first thought that ran through my mind was — _whatever_. I'll deal. Fine, I'll pee my pants; fine, I'll throw up. Just let me enjoy this flawless sleeping position and get my freaking beauty sleep. And then the second thought is always — well, if I get up and relieve myself really fast, and just _remember_ this position, maybe I can find it again and resume my sleepiness. But that never lasts for long because of Thought #3, the panic that I'll never find it again and spend the rest of the night trying to find the one-in-a-million gold spot. And by then, now I'm completely awake and not getting any rest at all, and when that proverbial mental train is cut off by something that sounds like a human body landing on my living room floor, I'm just so PO'ed that I don't care.

"What the _heck,"_ I groaned, except I didn't really say heck. But since my mom's reading this I'll just leave that to her imagination. Note to self: cut these last twenty-seven words. "This _better_ be important."

I didn't even get up yet. But still, it was so obvious at least _someone_ was there — for one, I got this annoying aura-sensor thing that lets me know, hey, there's an intelligent being in your vicinity. It's really stupid but in a way, it's the only thing that I can actually smell. Human auras.

This one was yellow and reminded me of a cave, for some reason.

Life auras are weird. Like I'd never figured out exactly how or what, but the one thing my dad told me about my powers was that auras could tell you something about the owner. But since he never told me anything else about it, along with like the rest of everything he was _supposed_ to tell me, I had no idea whether the aura changed on basis of personality, or on future fate, or on mood, or what.

One pattern that I had recognized, though, was that things that were out to kill me more often than not had yellows.

This was human-shaped and had a little bit of black on its edges, just like Dad's (and supposedly mine too, but since my life aura is the only one I can't see, which kinda ticks me off, all I've got is deductive reasoning). Still, the fact that it smelled like a younger, cave-y version of Dad wasn't comforting, because obviously my old man is _not_ good news.

I rolled over, almost falling off my couch but saving myself at the last moment, and cracked open my eyes.

It was a kid. My age maybe, which is somewhere around fourteen. A really sharp-lookin' nose, skin like he hadn't gone outside since birth, dark hair that appeared to have been styled by blind squirrels. Also, a big black sword.

The Hades kid. Great.

"No vacancy. Out."

I'd closed my eyes but I could pretty much _feel_ him glaring, even without the AutoAura 2000 stuffed up my dysfunctional nose. "I wasn't planning on staying, don't worry," he grumbled, and I heard him step towards the window. The chain on his belt made a little _clink, clink_ as he walked. I felt a bit of cool, humid air pass over my skin, just like the stuff I felt whenever I shadow-phased, except a bit more muted. Must be 'cuz it's not me this time, I thought at first, before I felt my stomach do a barrel roll again.

 _Thump._

"What the Hades?" the kid's voice came from somewhere on the complete opposite side of the room — which wouldn't be much of a feat without shadow travel though, because this place was _small._ Even still, that was just weird. I cracked open my eyes again.

The kid was standing by the tiny bathroom, looking around and shaking his head dizzily. "Sorry," he murmured. "That's not supposed to happen."

"What's not supposed to happen?"

"Nothing. Forget it." He was doing the thing. The thing that demigods do when they don't want mortals to get suspicious. Like a layering of the voice, a little twist into the curtain between gods and men. I know because I did it all the freaking time, and I sucked at it.

"Yeah, right. Nothing. You're tryin' to shadow travel, aren't you?"

His head snapped up like one of those things you put behind doors to keep 'em from bouncing against the wall and kids just use to twang and scare their household pets. "What?"

"I said, yeah right. Nothing. You're tryin' to shadow travel, aren't you?"

He looked at me with something like confusion, maybe disgust. Probably both. "Wait…what?"

I sighed and inhaled. Maybe he was deaf. I could work with that. "I SAID, YEAH — "

"I _get_ that," he snapped. "I mean — gods, just forget it. What… _are_ you?"

I realized I was still lying on the couch, but accidentally really provocatively, and so I sat up. I'd no idea what to say, and half of me was still on tornado watch. Back here in Illinois, especially when I lived a bit further west, everyone had one of these cute little weather radios or at least a bookmark to the weather page on their web browser. Basically green meant ay-okay, yellow meant watch your butt, and red was you're screwed. Everything was yellow today. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow freaking everywhere.

"There's a lotta ways I could answer that question," I told him. "What are _you?"_

Now he was just getting ticked. "Obviously you don't need the answer to that, because you already know."

"Yeah. You're that Hades kid, aren't you?"

"What's it to you?"

"I need to know how fast to run."

He just stared at me, still breathy. His eyes were narrowed so tight I was surprised he could even see me anymore. "Who are you?"

"Name's Sage." My staff had fallen on the floor and I picked it up, before reaching out my hand for him to shake. "Sage Thanem. You know, the Thanatos kid?"

Slowly, without breaking my gaze, he shook his head. "Um…no, actually. I didn't know Thanatos had a kid."

"He didn't either, apparently."

"Oh. Yeah, he's like that sometimes. Uh…I'm Nico."

"Nico. Got a last name?"

"Di Angelo."

He took my hand. It was a strong grip, but I could feel his bones. "Demigod. Looking for a place to stay, or just passing through?"

"Trying. What'd you do?"

"What _did_ I do?" It was a genuine question. I had about as many answers as the mayonnaise in my Big Mac.

Nico's glare intensified. Which was, honestly, the only thing his entire face seemed capable of doing. "I dunno, _this._ Whatever it was. I can't shadow-travel."

I shrugged. "I can't help you. Do you _know_ how much I suck at it?"

"I do now."

"Great."

I sat down again. He sat next to me, like we were waiting for a bus that'd never come.

"You're a demigod, aren't you?"

I just looked at him. "Duh."

"Oh. You know, they've got a camp for us."

"What?"

"Yeah, it's great. We get cabins according to our godly parent and train our powers and all that crap. Plus, free food. You know Long Island in New York? It's right there."

I made a gagging noise in the back of my throat. "Oh my gods…no. Not that place."

"What?" Didn't Nico just _love_ that word.

"I said, _no._ What, are you deaf? I ain't going back there!"

"You've already been there?"

"It's been a long four years, kid."

He went silent, and so did I. Obviously, it wasn't a pretty topic for me.

"What happened?"

And _of course_ he asked that. I sighed. "Arrived at a bad time I think. Dropped in via shadow-travel, met a guy with a hundred eyes and tried to fight him because I reasoned he was out to kill me, then left."

"That's…our head of security."

That, if anything, was awkward. "Oh. I thought he was just some random monster who dropped in. Didn't think it'd be a great place for me if it's covered in baddies. Sorry…"

"It's fine. Happens to a lot of newbies actually. Just…don't say that around him."

"Him?"

"That was Argus."

"Angus. Right."

"Argus."

"Oh."

I felt ultra stupid now, if anything, and maybe a little ticked. Obviously, I hated my life as it was — honestly, if your toilet breaks every time you use more than two sheets of toilet paper and it's not even double-ply, and if spending nights holed out inside Dumpsters becomes a regular thing, you could probably start to get annoyed with independence. I wanted a bed again, and actual food. As much as I used to like it, cheapo mac-n-cheese every night gets real old real fast.

So now knowing the fact that I'd pushed away the chance to have that again, you'd understand why I wasn't happy.

"You think they'll take me?" I asked the son of Hades, meeting his eyes. They were a glassy black, like obsidian. "As like…y'know, me?"

He hesitated for a second, as if he didn't know how to respond, and he blinked. Then, he nodded.

"Yeah. I'm sure they will."

* * *

 **So, here we are again. I have rewritten this...thing. I don't know if I'll finish it or if I'll get as far as the original, but I guess I just wanted to try something. Experimenting with dialogue, checking my growth as a writer. Also procrastinating studying for finals.  
**

 **Yeah. Sorry.**


End file.
